


Bad Dreams

by niblets



Series: When It Feels Like This (Iloristair) [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, a little bit, alistair is bad at hiding his feelings, ilora is bad at pretending she still hates all humans, maybe? kinda, why do i bother trying to tag things sdlkfjsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niblets/pseuds/niblets
Summary: Then again, perhaps she was a fool. Because while it was obvious what he had wanted, she'd been all too eager to pretend that it wasn't what she wanted too.In which Ilora Mahariel has bad dreams, Alistair was just trying to help, and neither of them quite know how to handle the repercussions.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Mahariel (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Alistair/Mahariel (Dragon Age), Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age)
Series: When It Feels Like This (Iloristair) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733440
Kudos: 14





	Bad Dreams

Ilora had always been a deep dreamer. Tamlen had joked that he was amazed she ever knew reality from fiction in her first hour of waking. Keeper Marethari had expressed fascination with how deeply she fell into the Fade, saying she dreamt like a mage might, despite having no magical inclinations of her own. There were two sides to every coin, however. While her dreams were often either whimsical and fantastic or full of ordinary events like a hunt with Tamlen or braiding a child’s hair by the fire, surrounded by their clan, sometimes... they were worse.

And since Ostagar... since everything, they had been nothing but _worse_.

  
She could usually recognize that her dreams were only as real as she allowed them to become, but when the dreams became nightmares... the line became blurry and difficult to distinguish, or even find. Tonight, it was nonexistent.

  
She was in a camp... asleep? In the woods? Underground? A fire? She could smell burning... wood? Flesh? She could hear things... awful things. Guttural cries of darkspawn, circling her, closer.. closer... Where was Alistair? Where was Morrigan? They had said they’d keep watch.

  
_Wake up, Ilora._ The voice was distant. Her own, perhaps? Her mind was aware of the danger, but her body would not move.

  
Closer, the darkspawn crept. Closer.. and closer... 

  
_Ilora... Ilora..._ She could not will her eyes to open, despite the hammering of her heart in her chest, the pulsing of her blood screaming. The darkspawn were closer now. She could feel them. Hear them. The footsteps drew near. One was beside her now... Her heart thumped and she felt herself twitch. So close... If she could just-

  
Then, a loud cry from above, a flash of an image in her mind- a dark and terrible dragon, soaring above, screeching it’s power for all to hear. She heard a terrified whimper fall from her own lips and she fought even harder, clawing against her own mind, begging to be given control again.Then, there was a grip on her shoulder, and the tether on her mind snapped. Before she’d even opened her eyes, her body had leapt into action. A hand beneath her bedroll for the knife she stored there, knee to the gut of the darkspawn above her, hips twisting to throw it off balance and gain purchase.

  
“ _Oof_ -” The sound of the body hitting the ground just as she threw her leg over and pinned it down with her hips caused her to pause. She felt fingers wrap around her wrist, halting the movement of the knife she had just sharpened hours before from sinking into what should have been the throat of some hideous, snarling beast. Another around her other arm, where a hand was splayed on the ground beneath her. 

  
The hands were large... but warm, softer than a darkspawn’s could possibly be, though still calloused with use. And gentle... As gentle as they could be while trying to prevent having their throat slit in the night, and gentler than any darkspawn capable of.

  
She blinked, and blinked again, and the foggy vision of the darkspawn beneath her began to melt away.

  
Sandy hair, golden skin... brown eyes, wide with shock...

  
It took her a long moment to regain her grip on what was real and what had been a dream. Her chest heaved as her heart continued to thunder in her ribs, the adrenaline of what she had been sure was nearly her death taking far too long to subside. 

  
She anchored herself with those eyes beneath her. Searching them desperately for any kind of indication that this was real, and not some trick of the Fade. Perhaps she had fallen victim to a Fear demon, and this was it’s idea of some kind of sick joke. Making her decide whether or not she needed to kill something that looked like Alistair before it could kill her first. She tightened her grip on her knife subconsciously and Alistair hissed beneath her, chin lifting ever so slightly.

  
“Ilora..” His voice was sturdy, calm, though she could hear a faint tremble. He was as uncertain as she was now... Slowly, the shock in his eyes softened, though there was an understandable level of unease there.

  
“The dreams, right?” He muttered, staring intensely into her eyes, and she felt the haze lifting. Walls of her tent. Gentle crackle of a slowly dying campfire outside. The grip of her knife white hot- knuckles clenched too tight. She blinked quickly, never once looking away from Alistair’s gaze. It was gentle, warm... a guiding light.

  
“I know,” He muttered, and when he gripped her wrist to pull the knife away from his throat, she let him.

  
“I know,” He said again, voice soft, reassuring. “I get them too.”

  
Slowly, Alistair released her other arm and she felt his fingers against hers, coaxing her to relax her grip on her knife.. and she did. He took it from her and Ilora watched as he gingerly laid it on the ground beside them, as though he expected it to attack him of its own accord now. When she looked back, she realized his gaze had not left her face. 

  
“Okay?”

  
Suddenly, a breath she had not realized she’d been holding rushed from her lungs and she sat back against his thighs, lifting her free hand to scrub at her face. He still gripped her other wrist in his hand, though much less firmly now. 

“I...” She paused, swallowing, her voice sounding raw. “Perhaps.”

  
Ilora dropped her hand from her face in favor of pushing her hair back over her shoulder. It had fallen forward during the excitement and she was suddenly struck with image of it pooled beside Alistair’s shocked face. Dread Wolf take her for not braiding it away as she usually did at night, and Dread Wolf take her for the way her heart stuttered at the memory when she was still reeling from the fear of her nightmare. Alistair released her other wrist and propped himself up on his elbows, lips curled at the corners in a small, teasing smile, though she didn’t miss the color on his cheeks. _Of course,_ she chided herself, suddenly all too aware of how she still sat astride his legs, knees braced on either side of his hips. _Shemlen are not as comfortable with physical closeness as you are used to, Ilora. Get a hold of yourself._

  
“Well,” Alistair said jovially, obviously attempting to break any kind of tension he may have been feeling. “You’re awake now and I wasn’t skewered, so I’d call this a victory for both of us.”

  
Ilora opened her mouth to retort, prepared to give the poor man some space, but her eye caught something instead. Red. Blood, trickling down Alistair’s throat. A small wound, where the tip of her knife had been. She immediately recalled the sound of his sharp inhale, and guilt wracked her.

  
“ _Oh,_ ” All thoughts of a shemlen’s discomfort with personal space forgotten, she immediately leaned forward, hands gripping either side of his jaw to force him to lean his head back so she could get a better look in the dim light. He complied easily enough, though he was clearly surprised, if the noise he made was any indication. 

  
The wound seemed small, and nothing too concerning, though she couldn’t be certain. Biting her lip in concentration, she released his jaw in favor of gently swiping a fingertip over the wound to clear away the blood that had gathered just below the dip of his adam’s apple. Her trainer would have been proud. A killing blow, even from the depths of sleep.

  
Alistair made a noise, squirming for a moment beneath her, and her eyes immediately snapped to his, worry chasing away any thoughts of the hunting practices of her childhood. 

“I’m sorry,” She said. “Did that hurt?”

  
“N-no.” Alistair seemed to stumble over his own tongue for a moment and when he saw her lift a brow and smirk in amusement, he suddenly seemed unable to look her in the eye. Ilora watched his cheeks darken again and frowned. 

  
“Then sit still.” Ilora chided, choosing to ignore any potential discomfort her closeness was causing, focusing again on the wound she had inflicted. Guilt rattled in her stomach and she cursed herself. The wound was not so deep that he would not heal from it, but deep enough that the bleeding would take time to subside.

  
Without thinking, she did exactly as her trainer had taught her. _A quick solve for pesky wounds that may bleed too much otherwise,_ He had said. _Nothing for the long term, but something to hold you over should you need it, should you be out of salves._

  
The taste of iron on her tongue was familiar. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d done this for herself. Even for Tamlen, once or twice. What was unfamiliar, however, and something she had not been prepared for, was the taste and smell of _Alistair_. His skin tasted of campfire smoke beneath the tin of his blood, and he smelled like... warmth. Sunshine.

  
She heard Alistair’s gasp and his shocked questioning of her name, asking what she was doing, but she ignored him. She ignored the rise of her own pulse, for reasons completely unrelated to a nightmare now, and leaned back slightly to look at the wound on his throat again. When another droplet of blood began to bead, she leaned down and licked it away and this time, she felt his pulse jump beneath her lips. 

  
On it went for what surely felt like an eternity to the both of them but couldn’t have been longer than a minute, and when Ilora was finally satisfied with her work, she became aware of the grip of his fingers on her knees and the rise and fall of his chest. She paused, swallowing, suddenly nervous. A completely common and mundane thing amongst Dalish hunters perhaps but... had she crossed a line? Alistair was a Chantry Templar turned Grey Warden and was certainly not aware of the customs of her clan... Yet again, she cursed herself, and sent a silent prayer to Falon’Din to guide her to her rest instead of force her to face the consequences of her actions.

  
When no such answer to her prayers came, she steeled herself and leaned back, hands dropping away from his face, avoiding his gaze. But when he said nothing and made no motion to move, her curiosity got the better of her... and the weight of his gaze slammed into her like a boulder in a rock slide.

  
Slowly, he sat up from where he was still leaning against his elbows, and she might have leaned away if she weren't pinned beneath the look in his eyes, the air stolen from her lungs. Ilora was no fool. She'd seen the way Alistair watched her when he'd thought she wouldn't notice, how his gaze followed wherever she went- respectful, but _yearning_. 

  
He'd always been friendly, since the day they'd met, despite her outright determination to hate him... but it had changed since Ostagar. Since they'd spent months together on the road. Since she'd been his only source of comfort after Duncan had died... Then again, perhaps she _was_ a fool. Because while it was obvious what he had wanted, she'd been all too eager to pretend that it wasn't what she wanted too.

  
"Ilora," Alistair's voice was quiet, but shockingly close, and Ilora suddenly became very aware of the lack of space between them. If she breathed just deep enough, her chest would brush his, and her vision was completely swallowed by the color of his eyes. Deep, brilliant amber, like warm honey on a summer day. 

  
Then, she felt the gentle brush of the back of Alistair's knuckles against her cheek and her breath hitched in her throat. She pulled away like she'd been burned and the moment crumbled. Alistair immediately withdrew his hand, worry knitting his brow, lips parting and she was sure the next words out of his mouth would be an apology, and she couldn't bear the thought of it. So, she spoke first.

  
"That should help with the bleeding," She said curtly, and she pushed herself up off her knees as quickly and gracefully as she could manage, ignoring the way her legs shook and clearing her throat. "You can ask Wynne for bandages if you feel you need them." 

  
Then, without another word and without daring another look in Alistair's direction, she turned, threw open the flap of her tent and walked out of the camp. There was a river nearby and she was quite certain she could do with a very cold bath right about now.

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this scene stuck in my head for some time and today decided to try my hand at drawing a still from it... then the words just sort of... came lol. i'd like to write a follow up, hopefully soon! and if i ever actually finish the drawing i'll be sure to share it!


End file.
